


Everything Is Going to Be Alright

by toyhto



Category: Inception (2010)
Genre: Angst, Eames is already dead there's no surprise deaths in this, Fluff, Ghost sex and therapy, M/M, Past Character Death, Post-Canon, Romance, i don't know what this is, what
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-15
Updated: 2021-03-15
Packaged: 2021-03-23 16:48:36
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,862
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30058530
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/toyhto/pseuds/toyhto
Summary: Eames dies and comes back as a ghost. Arthur is in love with him.
Relationships: Arthur/Eames (Inception)
Comments: 7
Kudos: 27





	Everything Is Going to Be Alright

**Author's Note:**

> Okay, I don't know what happened with this one. This was supposed to be light and somewhat crack-ish story in which Eames comes back to Arthur as a ghost after his sudden death. But this took a more serious turn for some reason, so now this is about dealing with grief but also there're attempts at humour. As said in the tags, Major Character Death warning is because Eames is dead in this, there're no surprise deaths ahead.
> 
> You can say hi to me on [tumblr](http://toyhto.tumblr.com).

”Arthur…”  
  
 _Oh, god, not this again.  
  
_ Arthur rolls onto his side and keeps his eyes firmly shut. Maybe it’s a dream this time. Or maybe he’s just hearing things. That’s certainly possible. He hasn’t slept through the night in months, not since -  
  
“I died.”  
  
 _Fucking hell._ It’s not a dream, and he’s probably not hearing things, either, although it’s slightly possible that he might just be going crazy. That would certainly make this simpler. He takes a deep breath, rolls onto his back and opens his eyes. “Hello.”  
  
“Hello,” Eames says, sitting on him, only of course he can’t feel anything. Eames is wearing new clothes again, and this outfit is even crazier than the last one. It’s like a 90’s grumpy teenager meeting a 70’s disco star, which probably is a proof that Arthur’s not going crazy after all. He could never imagine something like this on his own, so it has to be real.  
  
Well, ‘real’ in the broadest possible sense of the word, anyway.  
  
“I died,” Eames says, staring at Arthur as if he expects Arthur to do something about it.  
  
“I know,” Arthur says, biting his lip. This isn’t his favorite topic to talk about, but unfortunately, it’s one of Eames’. “I was in the funeral.”  
  
“I _know_ ,” Eames says, “I was watching. You looked really nice in that suit. I tried to grope your arse but my hand slipped straight through. It was pretty erotic, though. I wish you could’ve seen me.”  
  
Arthur opens his mouth to say either that maybe Eames should stop flirting with him now that it’s obviously too late to do anything about that, or that it was nice, not being able to see Eames in grumpy disco clothes hovering over his bed and stroking his knees, which by the way is what Eames is doing right now. But he realizes he can’t say either of those things.  
  
“I was trying to sleep,” he says instead. At least that’s true.  
  
Eames bats his eyelashes. “I didn’t mean to wake you up.”  
  
“Of course you did,” Arthur says. Eames has woken him up every night for more than a month now. It started maybe a week after the funeral. At first Arthur thought he was having a nightmare. Apparently he was more traumatized by Eames’ sudden death than he had first realized, because he was having a nightmare in which Eames came to his room as a ghost, woke him up by whispering his name, and then said nice things about his ass. But it happened again the next night, and the next. “Eames,” he says now, “I really have to sleep. I have work tomorrow.”  
  
“Sorry,” Eames says. Dying has made him oddly polite about some things. “I heard you wanking earlier.”  
  
“Fuck off,” Arthur says. He’s not blushing, and also it’s so dark in the room that Eames probably can’t tell.  
  
“No, I didn’t,” Eames says, “but you’re blushing. It’s very sweet. So, you were wanking earlier, then. Were you thinking about me?”  
  
Arthur throws a pillow at him. It goes straight through.  
  
“I’ve been meaning to tell you,” Eames says, his eyes suddenly going very serious. They’re still transparent, though. “I like you, Arthur.”  
  
“Your timing isn’t ideal,” Arthur says.  
  
“There’s another thing I’ve been meaning to tell you.”  
  
“Maybe you shouldn’t.”  
  
“I definitely shouldn’t,” Eames says. “I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but I’m a bit late with this.”  
  
“I’ve noticed,” Arthur says. He has a bad feeling. He has a very bad feeling, which is nothing new, because he’s been sleeping poorly and therefore he has a very bad feeling almost constantly. For example, he feels that Eames is following him, like, all the time. And he feels that he’s sadder than he should be and that the wise thing would be to talk to a therapist or something, but he knows he’s going to cry then and that’s fucking scary. He doesn’t want to cry. He doesn’t want to be sad. He and Eames were barely friends. It’s just fucking unfair that Eames is dead now and that’s making Arthur feel like something’s broken in him, like, maybe his heart.  
  
And, yeah, he also feels that maybe he’s a little bit in love with Eames. That’s the worst fucking feeling, especially now when Eames the ghost is running his fingers up on Arthur’s thigh in a gesture that would be completely inappropriate if one of them wasn’t dead. Or maybe that doesn’t make a difference, actually. Maybe it’s still inappropriate.  
  
“I think we should go on a date,” Eames says, his fingers brushing over Arthur’s boxers.  
  
Arthur swallows. He’s not going to start crying.  
  
“I know that you cried this afternoon, by the way,” Eames says, glancing at the wall. “I was watching. Not that it’s any of my business, but well, I just thought maybe you’d like to know.”  
  
“I’m not going to cry,” Arthur says, biting his lip too hard.  
  
“I kind of want to cry, too,” Eames says, “but sadly all my bodily fluids are gone. I didn’t think I’d miss pissing but I do. And I’d give almost anything for one more chance to take a shit. Or –“  
  
“ _Eames_.”  
  
“Well, what I meant to say was that it’s okay if you cry,” Eames says. “I like it when your face goes all pink and blotchy. I don’t know why, but I do. Maybe it means that this is real love.”  
  
“Eames,” Arthur says, terribly tired and possibly pink and blotchy, “this can’t be real love.”  
  
“And why not?” Eames asks. He sounds offended, and not as dead as he looks.  
  
“Because you’re dead,” Arthur says.  
  
Eames stares at him. “So what?”  
  
“You’re _dead_ ,” he says, even though now he’s feeling unnecessarily cruel. Eames knows he’s dead. That’s what he talks about the most when he haunts Arthur at night. He talks about how dull being dead is, and how shocked he is that he died, and how sometimes he thinks he can feel his fingers, and how not having a body makes using public transport easier. Sometimes he talks about sex with a flirting tone in it, and sometimes he talks about sex and sounds like he’s freaking out and wants Arthur to calm him down, so Arthur talks to him about taxes. Talking about taxes apparently makes Eames think he’s glad that he’s dead.  
  
At this precise moment, Eames doesn’t seem happy to be dead, though.  
  
“Sorry,” Arthur says.  
  
“Do you remember the day when I died?” Eames asks.  
  
“Of course,” Arthur says. It was Wednesday. They were almost ready to wrap up the job. The extraction was supposed to be that night. Arthur was thinking about getting back home, sleeping in his own bed and babysitting his sister’s cat. And Eames. He was also thinking about Eames. And then he got the news.  
  
“I was coming to see you,” Eames says, watching him. “That night. Before the extraction.”  
  
“No,” he says.  
  
“Yes,” Eames says, the fucking bastard.  
  
“Don’t tell me this,” Arthur says. “It’s too late.”  
  
Eames stares at him quietly for a moment, almost as if considering what to say, but that’s not possible. That’s not like Eames at all. People don’t change. They die suddenly and tragically, but otherwise, they don’t change.  
  
“I was coming to tell you,” Eames says finally, “that I like you and we should get a hotel room together and have wild sex until one of us sprains something.”  
  
  
**  
  
  
Arthur should have said ‘no’, and actually, he did. He also pointed out that it’s impossible for them to have wild sex when one of them is a ghost, and there he lost the argument, because he got distracted thinking about wild sex with Eames. He’s wanted that for years – well, not necessarily _wild_ sex. _Regular_ sex would have been fine. But he always saw Eames only when they were working together, and it’s generally a bad idea to sleep with your colleague when you’re preparing to commit a crime sometime soon. And besides, Eames always flirted with him but never did anything about it. He thought maybe Eames wasn’t interested after all. And it took him a few years to realize that maybe _he_ was interested in a bit more than a few casual nights of anal sex.  
  
So, it’s not surprising at all that after he told Eames ‘no’ a couple of times, he finally said ‘yes’. He didn’t have a fucking clue what they could do on a date when only one of them is alive, and he had a feeling that this wasn’t going to make his heart any less broken, but he was tired and sad and badly sleep-deprived, and Eames was trying to hold his hand, only Eames’ fingers kept slipping through his.  
  
‘ _Really?’_ Eames asked.  
  
 _‘Yes_ ,’ Arthur said, ‘ _’really’_ , and then he had to say ‘yes’ a few more times, because Eames was suddenly worried that maybe Arthur had only said ‘yes’ because he had got tired of saying ‘no’. Arthur barely stopped himself before telling Eames that actually, he had liked Eames for years and the only thing that was keeping him from kissing Eames now was that Eames was dead and didn’t have a corporeal form. He told Eames to fuck off instead, because it was late and he needed to sleep, and Eames lay down on his back next to Arthur, hovering in the air five inches above the mattress, and said ‘good night’.  
  
“Hello, darling,” Eames says now, and Arthur jumps and hits his shoulder against a lamp post. Eames grins at him and places a hand on his shoulder, then looks slightly disappointed when his fingers slip through. Arthur swallows. Eames is wearing a suit, an actual incorporeal suit. It’s bright blue and slightly transparent like the rest of Eames, but it’s the thought that counts.  
  
Eames is also holding a bouquet.  
  
“Is that for me?” Arthur asks as quietly as he can. A woman walking past on the pavement glances at him sharply, and he tries to look like someone who’s not talking to himself.  
  
“Naturally,” Eames says and tries to give the bouquet to him. It goes through his hands. “Oh, shit,” Eames says, “I forgot.” He lets go of the bouquet and it stays floating in the air for a few seconds before dimming and disappearing. “You look good,” Eames says. “You look very good, actually. Are you using a new hair product?”  
  
“Of course not,” Arthur lies.  
  
“Lovely,” Eames says and blinks. “I wish I could smell you. Anyway, shall we go?”  
  
“Yes,” Arthur says and ignores a gang of teenagers who look at him oddly. He walks through the main gate. At least the teenagers don’t follow. And this place is quiet anyway, just like he hoped it would be, on Monday morning. He buys himself a ticket and ignores Eames’ complaints that _Eames_ should be the one to pay, since he’s the one who asked Arthur on a date. Then Eames tries to flirt with the cashier and goes silent for a moment when the cashier only seems to notice Arthur.  
  
“I forget sometimes,” Eames says a bit later, when they are walking past the ostriches. “Not often. But being around you makes it easier to forget. Maybe because you’re so distracting. Did you have to open the top button?”  
  
“It’s a hot day,” Arthur says to the ostriches. They stare at him judgingly. “Why did you pick the zoo?”  
  
“Because you said you wouldn’t hold a seat for me in a movie theatre,” Eames says. “And I wanted to the see the penguins. Where are they, anyway?”  
  
“You wanted to see the penguins?” Arthur asks the ostriches.  
  
“I’ve never seen a penguin before,” Eames says. “I regret it.”  
  
“…right.”  
  
“I regret a few other things, too,” Eames says. He’s standing so close to Arthur now that Arthur can’t stop thinking how easy it would be to turn his head and kiss Eames on the mouth, if only Eames was alive. “Like, when I was twelve and glued both of my palms onto our kitchen table.”  
  
“You… _what?_ ”  
  
“And I regret that I didn’t ask you on a date sooner.”  
  
Arthur bites his lip. “Don’t –“  
  
“When I first met you,” Eames says, turning to look at the ostriches, “I thought you were hot as hell but had a stick up your arse. Metaphorically. And also, I thought you’d be exactly the kind of a person who thinks that it’s not a good idea to fuck someone with whom you’re about to commit a crime.”  
  
“Well –“  
  
“But then I got to know you,” Eames says, “and I realized that you’re usually right to care about the things you care about, like, work ethic. And that you’re surprisingly funny sometimes. And you try to look tough even though you’re a cinnamon bun inside.”  
  
“… _what?_ ”  
  
“And you love cats, even though you know they only love themselves.”  
  
Arthur opens his mouth.  
  
“It’s true,” Eames cuts in. “Anyway, I started _liking_ you. And damn, that was scary. And then you disappeared with Cobb for you a few years, you git, and I was afraid that maybe you had fallen in love with him or something, you fucking idiot. But then you came back, and I meant to say something, maybe ask you on a date or offer to blow you, but I just…” He glances at Arthur. “I was afraid that maybe you didn’t like me after all.”  
  
“I like you,” Arthur says. The ostriches look surprised. Eames doesn’t.  
  
“Really?”  
  
“Yes,” Arthur says. He opens another button, because he’s having trouble breathing. “I like you a lot, Eames.”  
  
“Good lord,” Eames says, smiling. “I really should have said something.”  
  
“Yeah,” Arthur says, “me, too.”  
  
“I don’t know why I didn’t,” Eames says. “What was the worst that could happen, anyway? That you’d tell me that you weren’t interested? It’s not like that would’ve killed me.”  
  
Arthur clears his throat.  
  
“Yeah,” Eames says, raises his hand and moves it straight through Arthur’s face. “Exactly. Can you feel this at all?”  
  
Arthur shakes his head.  
  
“Are you sure?”  
  
Arthur nods.  
  
“What if I try your dick?”  
  
“Don’t,” Arthur says quickly, “not here.”  
  
“Why not?” Eames asks, sounding interested.  
  
“Because I don’t want to start thinking about you touching my dick _here_ ,” Arthur says. The ostriches look shocked, and so does an old man who’s walking down the road towards him. Oh, _shit._ He starts walking away from the ostriches and from the man who heard him flirting with the ostriches, and Eames follows him.  
  
“Maybe we should go back to your place, then,” Eames says. “But not before I’ve seen the penguins.”  
  
  
**  
  
  
They have ice cream next to the giraffes, or rather, Arthur does, because it’s a hot day and he likes ice cream, and because Eames insisted. Now, Eames is staring at him with an oddly intense look while he licks his lips.  
  
“You’ve got ice cream on your chin,” Eames says.  
  
Arthur wipes it with his fingers.  
  
“Can you lick your fingers?”  
  
“Absolutely not,” Arthur says and takes a napkin. After that, he sanitizes his hands and then goes back to eating the ice cream. He refuses to wonder why he’s licking it instead of biting, but it might have something to do with the effect it seems to have on Eames. Eames looks like a ghost on drugs.  
  
“Hey,” Eames says a bit later, when Arthur’s finished the ice cream and wonders what to lick next. “What would you have said?”  
  
“What?” Arthur asks.  
  
“I told you I was coming to talk to you when I died. I was coming to tell you that we should have wild sex.”  
  
“I’m not sure if I like wild sex,” Arthur says. “I’m not very imaginative about sex.”  
  
“I fucking knew it,” Eames says and then hovers silently next to Arthur for a moment. “But what would you have said?”  
  
“Does it matter?”  
  
“Of course it does.”  
  
“I mean,” Arthur says, glancing at Eames. Eames looks even more transparent in the broad sunlight. “Does it matter anymore?”  
  
“Of course it does,” Eames says, his voice quieter now. “Would you have told me that it’s not a good idea to fuck at a job?”  
  
“Yes,” Arthur says, “yeah, probably.” Oh, _fuck,_ it’s too late, and he’s too sad, and the weather is too hot for a suit if you aren’t an incorporeal ghost, and the giraffes are too cute, and his heart is ruined already. “And then I would’ve kissed you,” he tells Eames. “I would’ve brought you to my hotel room and locked the door and kissed you properly, and we would’ve fucked on that shitty mattress. And then I would’ve realized that we’ve got a job to do and panicked a little, but it would’ve been okay, and then after the extraction I would’ve asked you where you were going next.”  
  
“I was supposed to go to this small village in Portugal,” Eames says. “There was a retreat for people who’re planning to write an autobiography but are too lazy to get started.”  
  
“Well, you wouldn’t have gone to Portugal,” Arthur says. “You would’ve come back to Chicago with me. For a week or two. And I would’ve shown you the penguins.”  
  
“You can still show me the penguins,” Eames says. “Where are they, anyway? Why are we looking at the giraffes?”  
  
“Because there were at least thirty children looking at the penguins already. That’s why we turned around and came here instead.”  
  
“Oh, _that_ was why they had gathered there,” Eames says. “I thought you just suddenly realized you wanted ice cream.”  
  
“I also wanted ice cream,” Arthur says. “I would’ve said yes, Eames. I would’ve said _hell yes_. But you didn’t ask me.”  
  
“I was going to.”  
  
“Yeah,” Arthur says, “you were _going to_ , but when you were on your way to do it, you stopped to talk to a dog at the street and got run over by a bus.”  
  
“I’m a dog person,” Eames says, staring at him. “And you sound angry. Why are you angry? It wasn’t my fault.”  
  
“Of course it was your fault,” he says. “You were _on the street_ and you _stopped_ to talk to a _dog._ ”  
  
“Well, I know I should’ve checked first if there was a bus coming at me,” Eames says, his tone surprisingly sharp for a ghost, “but _you_ aren’t supposed to be angry at me. _I’m_ supposed to be angry at you. I forgot about the traffic safety for _one second_ and now I’m _dead_ and can’t even fucking _kiss you_.”  
  
“You forgot about the traffic safety _all the time_ ,” Arthur says, “you fucking idiot, you never bothered about anything that might’ve actually kept you alive, like, stopping at the red lights.”  
  
“ _Nobody_ stops at the red lights when they’re walking.”  
  
“Germans do.”  
  
“Well, I’m not a fucking German, am I?”  
  
“No,” Arthur says, “no, you’re a _ghost_ , and that dog wasn’t even _cute_ , so what was the point in throwing your life away?”  
  
“I didn’t know I was going to _die_ ,” Eames says, “and all dogs are _cute_ , and how do you think he would feel if he knew you said he wasn’t cute? Dogs have _feelings_ , Arthur. You can’t just decide which dogs you think are cute and ignore the rest. They all deserve love. And how do you know he wasn’t cute, anyway? You weren’t there.”  
  
“I hacked all the security cameras around the area,” Arthur says. “I’ve seen the dog. It wasn’t cute.”  
  
“I don’t know if I like you anymore,” Eames says.  
  
“I’ve also seen that bus hit you at least fifty times in a low-frame-rate video,” Arthur says and pauses to take a deep breath. Fucking hell, this was a mistake. This is too upsetting. The giraffes seem upset, too, and they didn’t have to ask themselves why they’re watching video footage of their friend getting hit by a bus over and over again and why they haven’t booked an appointment with a therapist yet. “I couldn’t stop watching it,” he says and sees from the corner of his eye as Eames tries to touch him on the shoulder.  
  
“Sorry,” Eames says.  
  
Arthur swallows. Oh, god, he’s not going to start crying in front of the _giraffes._ “No, I’m sorry. I don’t know why I… _You_ are the one who died. _You_ should be angry.”  
  
“I can’t be angry at the dog,” Eames says in a quiet voice. “Somebody had to tell him he’s a good boy.”  
  
“Well, maybe you should be angry at me for being angry at you when all you did was die.”  
  
“I suppose you’ve got the right to be a bit angry at me.” Eames rubs his nose, then blinks at his finger. “Maybe we should have angry sex.”  
  
“I don’t think I can stay angry at you if we have sex.”  
  
“Okay, then we can have makeup sex.”  
  
“We can’t have sex, Eames. You’re a ghost.”  
  
“We’ll figure something out,” Eames says. “How about phone sex, but without a phone?”  
  
  
**  
  
  
“I can’t believe I didn’t see the penguins,” Eames says.  
  
Arthur closes his eyes and opens them again. The houseplant on the bookshelf is definitely dying. He blinks and fixes his eyes back to Eames, who’s floating in the air above him with his arms crossed over his chest. Eames is naked now, which is a bit weird since Arthur can still see straight through him. But it would probably be weirder if Eames was wearing clothes and Arthur was the only one naked.  
  
“Penguins?” Arthur asks. “Really? You want to talk about this _now?_ ”  
  
Eames smiles, but he looks still a bit hurt about missing penguins. “What, are you busy or something?”  
  
“Eames,” Arthur says as patiently as he can with two fingers stuffed into his ass, “there were children around the penguins _all the time._ We waited for _an hour._ I couldn’t just go there with _a ghost_ when the place was full of children.”  
  
“It’s not like they would’ve seen me,” Eames says. “I told you I would behave.”  
  
“I didn’t believe you,” Arthur says. “And I told you we can try again tomorrow.”  
  
“Promise?”  
  
“Sure.”  
  
“Really?”  
  
“ _Yes,_ ” Arthur says and wriggles his fingers a bit. _Fucking fuck._ “Eames –“  
  
“Alright, alright,” Eames says and slides down until he slips halfway through the mattress and ends up staring straight at Arthur’s ass. “Looks good.”  
  
“ _Eames –_ “  
  
“Shh,” Eames says and kisses the inside of Arthur’s thigh, or Arthur supposes that’s what Eames thinks he’s doing, only Arthur can’t obviously feel anything. Well, he can’t feel Eames’ kiss, but he _can_ feel Eames’ eyes on him, and he can feel his own fingers brushing over his prostate, and he can feel his dick quickly recovering from the minutes he spent thinking about penguins. “You’re alright,” Eames says, sounding intoxicated, “you’re more than alright, Arthur, you’re fine as hell actually, you’re a fucking masterpiece, and I can’t believe you shaved your crack for this, you idiot.”  
  
Arthur closes his eyes for a second. “I thought we were going to have sex.”  
  
“You don’t need to shave for sex,” Eames says, “you bloody idiot, it took you ten minutes. I don’t have time to wait for you to get rid of your body hair when it’s perfectly fine to just be hairy.”  
  
“You don’t have _time?_ ” Arthur says, biting his lips.  
  
Eames glares at him. “I don’t know what you’re hinting at, but I don’t like it.”  
  
“Come on,” he says, trying to sound cool and failing, “come on, Eames, I’ve got two fingers in my ass, and you were the one who told me to put them there, and now I’m waiting for more and you’re just staring at my ass and talking about my body hair –“  
  
“I want to kiss you,” Eames says and slides over to where he’s right above Arthur.  
  
Arthur breathes in. “You can’t.”  
  
“I want to kiss you so badly,” Eames says, coming lower until he’s practically on Arthur. “I want to hold your stupid face and kiss your stupid mouth. I can’t remember if I’ve ever wanted to kiss anyone so badly before.”  
  
“And that makes me stupid?”  
  
“I think I’m in love with you,” Eames says, “you fucker, you stole my heart at some point and now I’m in love with you and can’t even kiss you.”  
  
Arthur licks his lips. “I want to kiss you too.”  
  
“…you do?”  
  
“Yeah.”  
  
“What if I tell you I haven’t brushed my teeth since the day I died?”  
  
“…oh my god, Eames, stop it, I’m trying to have sex with you and you just –“  
  
“I’m just funny, I can’t help it,” Eames says and frowns. “You want to kiss me.”  
  
“Yeah,” Arthur says, “yeah, I do, I’m going to… I’m going to grab your shoulders and roll you over and sit on you and kiss you.”  
  
Eames blinks at him. He slides his fingers in and out.  
  
“And your cock is poking me at the ass,” he says.  
  
“ _Arthur,_ ” Eames says, his eyes wide, “I’m trying to be romantic here.”  
  
“I’m trying to get off,” Arthur says, but he knows he’s smiling and he doesn’t know how to stop. “So, we’re kissing and you keep teasing me and poking at me with your dick but refuse to do anything about it. I knew you’d be like that. I fucking knew.”  
  
“Yeah,” Eames says slowly, “yeah, I… I’d get in between your legs and lift them up onto my shoulders and… and then just… nudge my dick against your… you know.”  
  
“My hole.”  
  
“Yeah.”  
  
“What’re you waiting for,” Arthur says, “Eames, you fucking bastard, what’re you waiting for, you said we’d have wild sex, can’t you see that I’m dying for it here –“  
  
“Yeah, I can see that,” Eames says, glancing down at Arthur’s cock. “Don’t die, though.”  
  
Arthur swallows. “I’m not going to.”  
  
“Good,” Eames says, “good, then… so, I’ve got your legs up my shoulders, and I’m going to just… I’m going to push myself in. Slowly. And you’re going to tell me how much you need me to –“  
  
“Please,” Arthur says, pulling his fingers out and sliding them back in, slowly, as slowly as he can. “Please, Eames, I need it, I fucking need it, can you just…”  
  
“Quiet,” Eames says, “quiet, darling, we’re going to get there, I’m going to take care of you, I’m going to… Do you have a dildo?”  
  
Arthur bites his lip. “What?”  
  
Eames raises his eyebrows.  
  
“No, I meant… Yeah, I have a dildo. Why –“  
  
“Get it,” Eames says, “get it and push it into your arse and pretend it’s me.”  
  
“It’s blue,” Arthur says.  
  
“…don’t you have any imagination?”  
  
It turns out that he does, indeed, have imagination. He gets the dildo from the sock drawer, coats it with lube and then rolls onto his side on the bed. Eames tells him to go slowly, and he does, it’s been a while anyway, he usually doesn’t bother with this. He tells Eames it’s too big and Eames stares at him with his mouth hanging open, and he can almost forget that he can only hear one person breathing in the room and it’s definitely him. He’s panting. He’s panting as Eames tells him how he’s taking it, _well_ , he’s taking it well, he’s being so good, so brilliant, and he kind of wants to laugh because their sex fantasies are so _standard_ , and he wants to cry because Eames is dead, and he wants this to last forever and he wants to fucking come right now.  
  
“Can you come from this alone?” Eames asks, and Arthur tries to laugh but it surely sounds like a groan. No, he can’t, definitely not, and then Eames slides down and places his face against Arthur’s crotch and tells Arthur to start stroking his dick, so he does, he does even though he has to let go of the dildo then, because he doesn’t have the fucking motoric skills for this. It’s good anyway. He rolls onto his back and thinks about Eames’ cock in his ass and Eames hands all over him and Eames kissing him like they’re in love and everything is going to be alright -  
  
“Arthur,” Eames says, when Arthur comes, “Arthur, Arthur, Arthur…”  
  
  
**  
  
  
He wakes up in an empty room. He can’t have dozed off for more than a minute, though, because the dildo is still in his ass. It takes some wriggling to get it safely out, and then he thinks about dozing off again, but he needs to piss too badly. He climbs out of the bed and walks to the ensuite, closes the door for no reason because he’s alone in here, and pisses in the toilet. Oh, _fuck_ , he’s tired and sad and empty and he really needs to talk to a therapist.  
  
He makes an appointment that afternoon, after he’s had coffee and leftovers from yesterday and has watched two episodes of _Mad Men._ God, those suits. His hand is shaking when he holds the phone up to his ear and says that his friend died suddenly a few months ago, and they weren’t close or anything, but lately, he’s been thinking that he’s not coping too well. He’s not coping well at all and it’s only getting worse, and he knows people have real problems, but he’s been thinking that maybe he should get help anyway. The receptionist doesn’t laugh at him and doesn’t tell him to just try to deal with it and instead talks to him like he supposes people talk to someone who’s mental health is a bit fragile.  
  
He certainly feels fragile. He goes for a walk, almost starts crying, calls his sister, takes a bus to his sister’s house, pets his sister’s cat for thirty minutes, and then tells her he’s actually not doing very well at the moment but he doesn’t want to talk about it. She looks worried. The cat falls asleep in his lap. He’s incredibly sad but also slightly hopeful for a moment.  
  
He takes a bus back home. He should probably hate busses. Instead, he kind of hates himself for being so sad. Everyone loses someone. They weren’t even together, Eames and him. He just liked Eames and didn’t have the guts to speak to Eames about it, because he was afraid Eames wouldn’t like him back and it would be embarrassing for him. Now he’s apparently crying in the bus, so his tactic for avoiding embarrassment turned out a bit flawed. He sneezes and it’s probably the loudest noise in the history of busses.  
  
At home, he watches three more episodes of _Mad Men_ and falls asleep on the sofa.  
  
  
**  
  
  
“Arthur -”  
  
He opens his eyes. Eames is sitting on the television.  
  
“You fell asleep on the sofa,” Eames says. “Your neck is going to kill you tomorrow. You aren’t twenty-nine anymore, Arthur.”  
  
“I’m going to see a therapist,” Arthur says.  
  
Eames blinks. “Good.”  
  
“Good?”  
  
“It’s about time.”  
  
“You think so?”  
  
“Hey,” Eames says and smiles a bit, “go to bed and I’ll tell you a story about how I got caught wanking in the locker room at school.”  
  
“You didn’t,” Arthur says, and Eames grins. The story isn’t particularly good, though, but Arthur still feels better once he’s had a glass of water and taken a piss and is in his bed, like he should be, because normal people sleep in their beds and not on the sofa. Also, normal people sleep at night instead of talking to their dead friends, but what the hell. He rolls onto his side and sees the blue dildo on the floor.  
  
“I can’t believe you went to my funeral,” Eames says later, when Arthur’s almost dozen off.  
  
“I can’t believe it either,” Arthur says.  
  
“Exactly.”  
  
“I told them we worked together and then tried to avoid any further questions. I had to hide behind the tree, because your mother seemed suspicious.”  
  
“She probably thought you were one of my old boyfriends. She knows my type.”  
  
“I’m not your type.”  
  
“…true. But I liked you anyway. I always flirted with you.”  
  
“Maybe you didn’t mean it.”  
  
“Maybe I did.”  
  
“I should’ve asked you. I should’ve done something. And now I’ll never know.”  
  
“I think,” Eames says slowly, “I think it’s pointless to regret things you didn’t do. They’re gone already. And you can’t know what would’ve happened if you had chosen differently. You can’t live your life backwards.”  
  
“What is that, Nietzsche?”  
  
“You never read Nietzsche,” Eames says, “you started and thought it was bullshit. Arthur, you’re doing the right things now. You asked for help.”  
  
“I shouldn’t need help.”  
  
“Do you know what I regret?” Eames asks. It looks like he’s lying on the bed next to Arthur. It really looks like that, only when Arthur tries to touch him, he’s not there. “I regret that I didn’t tell you I think you’re clever, and kind, and your laugh sounds funny, and when you’re excited about something, you start fiddling with your fingers and don’t notice it. And you always try to protect other people. You try to make the world what you think it should be so that you could keep everyone safe.”  
  
“That’s my job.”  
  
“And you’re very good at it.”  
  
“I don’t know if I can work anymore. In the dreamshare. It’s not the same when you aren’t…”  
  
“You’ll find something else, then,” Eames says. “Hey, what was your favorite thing about me?”  
  
Arthur closes his eyes. “You were alive.”  
  
  
**  
  
  
The first time he goes to see the therapist, he almost turns around twice. When he’s finally sitting in the waiting room, he keeps staring at the door and thinking that he still has time to leave. He could just go. Certainly he’s not going to walk into that room and tell a stranger he’s so sad about his friend’s death that he’s genuinely worried he might be losing his mind. But then again, he already came this far, and it was fucking difficult, and he can’t do it again. And he can’t keep living like this, either. And then the door opens, and the therapist tells him to come in, and it’s terrible. He cries and it feels completely inappropriate. He’s sure his face is pink and blotchy, and he can’t look the therapist in the eyes, and he can’t make himself tell the therapist the worst parts, either. He tries to make it sound like he’s alright, even though the whole point of coming here was that he’s not alright and he knows it.   
  
After the therapy, he feels like he’s been carved empty and run over by a lawnmower. He goes home and cries for fifteen more minutes, watching _Mad Men._ But later that day, he starts thinking that maybe he’s feeling… not exactly better, but as if something’s shifted. At least he went to see the therapist even though it was fucking scary. He did that. He can be proud of that. And he didn’t tell the therapist that he sees Eames and talks with Eames, but at least he told the therapist that he feels like he’s sad all the time, and that sometimes he starts crying in the shower and can’t stop, and that even though he _knows_ he’s going to get through this, he can’t quite believe it. At least he told the therapist that much. And it feels like the things he said are a bit easier to carry now that they aren’t only inside his own head anymore.  
  
Dom calls him a few days later and asks him how he’s been. He says he’s fine, and then he starts thinking about it in the silence hanging between them.  
  
“No, I’m not,” he says finally. In the distance, he can hear James screaming something about ponies. “I’m not fine, but I’m… I don’t really know what I am.”  
  
“You liked him a lot,” Dom says slowly.  
  
“Yeah,” Arthur says, “but it’s not like… We were barely friends. And other people lose their… their spouses, or…”  
  
“Yes,” Dom says. “But you can be sad anyway. You’re allowed.”  
  
“But I’m a fucking mess.”  
  
“You’re allowed to be a fucking mess. You’re… Wait a minute. _James, stop doing that or the pony’s head is going to come off._ Okay, sorry about that, Arthur. Do you want to come here? To stay with us for a while?”  
  
“Really?”  
  
“I could use a babysitter,” Dom says and then sighs loudly. “ _James, for the last time, don’t break the pony!_ You aren’t looking for jobs right now, are you?”  
  
“No,” Arthur says and takes a deep breath, “but I’m going to therapy.”  
  
“Good,” Dom says, “that’s good. I’m doing it, too. It’s goddamn awful sometimes but it helps. _James, don’t cry, you have a box full of ponies with a head._ You can come here anytime you want, Arthur.”  
  
“Thank you,” Arthur says, and then they talk about headless ponies for a while.  
  
He goes to see Dom and the kids a few weeks later. It doesn’t make him less sad, but it’s nice to be sad somewhere else for a change. In the plane on the way home, he reads about a new phone app called _Tinder._ It sounds stupid but maybe he should download it anyway. The man sitting next to him keeps glancing at him, and after the landing they bump into each other at the airport and have a nice mutual handjob in the bathroom stall. Next day, they have dinner. The man turns out to be incredibly boring. Arthur adopts a cat.  
  
And the weeks go by, and he still cries in the shower and tells his therapist about it.  
  
  
**  
  
  
“Arthur?”  
  
He glances away from the penguins. Eames is sitting next to him on the bench – well, okay, Eames is hovering in the air over the bench in a sitting-like position. “Hi.”  
  
“Sorry I haven’t been around,” Eames says, frowning at the penguins. “Turns out it’s against the protocol to follow your crush around and talk to him and have phone sex with him without a phone when you’re dead and he’s not.”  
  
“…the protocol?”  
  
“Of being a ghost,” Eames says and grins at him but not very cheerfully. “There’re a lot of rules. It’s very boring. Anyway, tell me about you.”  
  
“What about me?”  
  
“What have you been doing?”  
  
“Don’t you know?”  
  
“Of course I _know_ ,” Eames says, “I just want to talk to you.”  
  
Arthur takes a deep breath. It’s a nice day, a warm day early in the fall, penguins are very cute and there are no children in the zoo today. He wishes he could hold Eames’ hand, but all things considered, he has had worse days. “Yeah, I know the feeling,” he says. “I don’t know what’s going on in my life.”  
  
“Nobody knows that,” Eames says.  
  
“I’ve been going to therapy,” Arthur says, “and I’ve thought about dating or something, and sometimes days go by and I don’t cry at all. And I saw Dom and the kids, and it was nice. And I’ve been trying to figure out what kind of a job to do next. I mean, outside the dreamshare. And I’ve got a cat now. His name is…”  
  
“What?”  
  
“Penguin.”  
  
Eames laughs. “Oh, my god, Arthur.”  
  
“Yeah.”  
  
“You named your cat after me.”  
  
“No, I named my cat _Penguin,_ even though he’s not a –“  
  
“Penguin.”  
  
“Anyway,” Arthur says, “I’m still so sad I feel like I can barely handle it sometimes. And I don’t know why. It doesn’t make sense. I shouldn’t be so sad. And sometimes I think that maybe it’ll never pass.”  
  
“It will, though.”  
  
“But maybe it won’t.”  
  
“It will,” Eames says and touches Arthur’s face. His fingers are warm. Arthur stops breathing for a second and then realizes that it’s his own hand, pressing his fingers lightly against his cheek. “You’ll be sad and then you’ll get better and at some point, you’re going to find new things to be sad about, but that’s fine, because it means you’re living,” Eames says, stroking Arthur’s chin with his thumb. “And you’re going to miss me because I’m awesome, but you’re also going to find someone you’re going to miss so much more. One day.”  
  
Arthur bites his lip. “Doesn’t sound good.”  
  
“We never were supposed to get through life with our hearts in one piece,” Eames says, “and that’s definitely not Nietzsche.”  
  
“I’ve never read Nietzsche.”  
  
“I know,” Eames says. “Everything’s going to be a bit terrible for a while, but after that, everything’s going to be alright.”  
  
“And what about after that?” Arthur asks. The penguins are staring at him now, and he thinks he can hear a group of children approaching him.  
  
“Terrible again,” Eames says, smiling. “Bloody hell, you’re too pretty. I wish someone alive would give you a proper kiss.”  
  
“I’ll try to do something about that,” Arthur says, and then he hears someone yelling about a flying machine and the revenge of the penguins. He glances over his shoulder. The children are coming. When he turns back to look at Eames again, Eames isn’t there anymore.


End file.
